


one step ahead of a losing game

by glassedplanets



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Attempting To Play Matchmaker But Grossly Misinterpreting What's Already Happening, Canon-Typical Violence, Gambit (Destiny), Investigations, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Multiple Mistaken Identities, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21678532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassedplanets/pseuds/glassedplanets
Summary: Aunor wants dirt on Shin Malphur. Drifter has dirt on Shin Malphur. Easy math. Bad idea.
Relationships: The Drifter & Aunor Mahal, The Drifter/Shin Malphur
Comments: 27
Kudos: 116





	one step ahead of a losing game

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to key for looking this over for me and brodie for helping me straighten out the pacing! title is from [Blood by ANIMA!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyVrPeMG2G8).

The lab’s been dark for hours, but Aunor can’t bring herself to move. There’s something, _something_ , just at the edges of her grasp, something she can’t put together. The transcripts are burned into her retinas, the recordings from her Ghost playing on loop in her head, that low voice rumbling _my struggle is older than yours_ over and over.

Shin Malphur knew something about those Guardians that she didn’t.

All paranoia is rooted in truth. All vengeance grows from the genuine seed of pain. What did he see in them? What sparked his ire?

How the _hell_ is she going to get more data?

The idea hits her seconds later. She jolts to her feet, unused joints screaming in protest, and she grabs her abandoned duster off the back of a stool.

“Bighari,” she says, “prep my Strike loadout.”

Her Ghost sighs.

* * *

Gambit is…

Aunor doesn’t know what it is. But her pulse is still pounding even after they’ve all transmatted back onto the Derelict, and she watches the Guardians around her laugh and congratulate and rib each other in high spirits with an odd, detached sort of clarity.

She doesn’t know how she feels about this game, but she knows how she feels about clearing nearly a hundred Red Legion out of the EDZ.

It’s alright.

And her teammates – one worth investigating. The Warlock had been aggressive, nearly uncooperative at times, bent on throwing herself into the fray without any regard for her life, for her teammates, for strategy of any sort.

Funny, she thinks, because she’d pegged the guy in a full set of danger-red Invader armor as being the one to watch out for. Instead, he’d been calm and polite, calling out incoming Invaders before neatly sending them right back to their own side, hopping into the invasion portal after helping Aunor or their other Hunter knock down something big, then coming back with four kills under his belt only to do it again.

Aunor checks the roster. No names for any of their teammates – unsurprising, she hadn’t put her name on the roster either – and no other identifying information, voice modulators on all of them save the Warlock. She sends the match data to Bahaghari anyways.

“Fancy seein’ you here, Miss Aunor,” Drifter says, and leans over the railing.

It’s just her and the Invader left in the transmat zone. He looks back over his shoulder at her, red snake burning on the back of his cloak, then he glances up at Drifter before transmatting away, data glittering in the absence of his silhouette.

Aunor takes her helmet off and shakes her hair out, sweat cooling in the frigid air.

“One of your Dredgens?” she asks, crossing her arms, nodding at the transmat plate next to her.

Drifter barks out a laugh, dropping his head down onto his folded arms.

“Yeah, somethin’ like that,” he says, shaking his head. “You here to round up some Shadows? Scare away my players?”

“Not exactly. What do you know about Shin Malphur?”

A peculiar sort of stillness comes over Drifter. The laugh fades from his face and his eyes flash with something that burns bright – fear? anger? hatred? – for just a second, just one sliver of a moment before he hitches his usual smug, sleazy grin back onto his face and rests his cheek against his fist.

“What, you want some dirt on the Man with the Golden Gun?” he asks, eyes glittering.

“I want information,” Aunor replies, and tilts her chin up in defiance of that knowing sneer.

Drifter smiles like a snake and gives her three sets of coordinates.

“Why’d you play Gambit?” Bahaghari demands, the instant they’re back aboard their own ship and in orbit.

Aunor sits in the chair and all the fight goes out of her, leaving her slumped over and tired. The Cormorant Seal etched onto her bond feels heavy.

“I wanted to know,” she says quietly. Bahaghari floats over to her, eye softly dimmed. Aunor cups her gently in her bare hands, finding comfort in the warm, familiar ridges of her shell against skin. She closes her eyes. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“It wasn’t even _really_ worth the information he gave us,” Bahaghari chides, but she doesn’t move, and her voice is gentle. “Scans came up negative for signs of traffic going back months.”

“It’s still a lead, and besides, I think he’s hiding how much he knows,” Aunor says. “No one in his position _or_ as paranoid as he is would know that little about the Man with the Golden Gun. If Drifter knows how to avoid him, we can use that to find him.” Her eyes slip closed again. “Those would-be Dredgens deserve a path back to the Light, not a final death. I don’t care what it takes to make him stop killing people who just need some guidance.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Bahaghari gently bumps her shell against Aunor’s fingers. “You _liked_ Gambit, though.”

Aunor tips her head all the way back and sighs.

“I _liked_ getting Cabal out of the EDZ,” she replies. “I didn’t touch another Guardian. I refuse to.”

“So you’re going to play again?” Bahaghari asks slyly.

Aunor contemplates chucking her into the storeroom.

* * *

She strides into the Annex in the evening, long after the scheduled (and unscheduled) Gambit matches have run their course. She’s expecting to find maybe one or two Guardians stopping by to pick up or cash out bounties, maybe someone checking leaderboards.

Instead, the Annex is lit only by the nauseating swirl of light in the Bank and Drifter’s silhouette is nowhere in sight. Odd. His things are all still in place; a half-assembled gun, a box of grimy parts, a handful of those infernal coins.

The faint murmur of a hushed voice reaches her ears as she takes another step closer, reverberating oddly against the walls. Aunor frowns and walks all the way in, boots clicking on stone, asserting her presence with every step.

“Drifter,” she calls.

There’s a soft scuff of boots on the floor, and an unfamiliar head peers warily around the back of the bank. A Hunter, in full Invader red. Unfamiliar otherwise, though Aunor has to repress the automatic urge to assume it’s the same one she fought alongside in her Gambit match earlier that week. Statistically possible, though unlikely. She catches the flash of a Ghost tucking itself away.

“He’ll be back,” the Hunter says, stepping up to her slowly. Voice modulator. Calm, even tone. “Just a minute.”

Aunor crosses her arms.

“And who are _you_ to be privy to that information?”

The Hunter shrugs, and right on cue, footsteps echo in from the hall. Aunor turns to see Drifter stopped dead in the doorway, holding a bundle of scrap. His eyes flit first to the Hunter, then to Aunor.

“Hello, Drifter,” Aunor says calmly.

“Evenin’,” he replies carefully. “What can I do ya for?”

Aunor glances over her shoulder at the Hunter.

“I wanted to continue our previous conversation,” she says. Drifter’s eyes cut over to the Hunter.

“I’ll leave,” he says, cloak fanning out as he steps forward. “We’ll do this another time.”

Annoyance flits over Drifter’s face. Interestingly, it’s not directed at Aunor.

“Fine,” Drifter says. “You owe me for this.”

The Hunter shakes his head in short motions, seemingly just as annoyed, then he strides out into the hall and transmats out a few steps later.

Interesting. That snake winding across the back of his cloak is different from what’s on the blueprints she’s seen.

There’s a clatter as Drifter dumps scrap next to a workbench, then he dusts off his gloves and says, “You here for somethin’ other than messin’ with my plans?”

Aunor glances back out the hall, then back at Drifter with raised eyebrows.

“Your plans,” she says flatly, not bothering to keep the rude incredulity out of her voice. “A date?”

Drifter turns an interesting shade of splotchy, blanched scarlet.

“Testin’ something,” he mutters. “ _Anyways_.”

“Anyways,” Aunor repeats, filing this information away, “the information you gave me last time about our mutual interest was good. I’m here to offer you some of my own.”

“Listen, Miss Aunor, I’m flattered you’d think of me, but I got all I need as far as, uh, all that goes.” He leans against the side of his workbench and looks her over with a calculating gaze. “If you feel like you owe me, pay me back with some more Gambit.”

Angry heat flares in her chest.

“No,” Aunor replies firmly, lip curling. “I won’t be drawn into your schemes, Drifter. If I owe you, I owe you on the straight and narrow.”

“You know your Glimmer’s gonna be goin’ right back to Gambit, right?” Drifter asks, raising his eyebrows. “Even if you pretend otherwise—”

Bahaghari dumps the requisite amount of Glimmer onto Drifter’s workbench, interrupting him with the murmuring fall of crystallized matter.

“Alright,” he says, hands up in surrender. “Your conscience, I guess.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” Aunor says, and turns primly on her heel.

* * *

“Hey,” Drifter says, stretching back to fold his hands behind his head, “by the way, I gave that Praxic ‘Lock that’s been snoopin’ around coordinates to some old as hell campsites near some Gambit arenas.”

Shin turns to look at him slowly, hands frozen with on his vest half-open, belt still undone. His hair’s a wreck and oh, does Drifter love this sight. Watching Shin try to put himself back together. Knowing he’s the one who undid him.

“You,” Shin says, “ _what_.”

“Yeah,” Drifter replies with a shrug, “so I wouldn’t hang around there for a bit unless you want another earful from her. Heard about the last lecture you got.”

Shin’s on him before Drifter can blink, hand fisting first into the sheets he’s got draped faux-modestly over his chest for a second before Shin realizes the futility of the gesture and fits his other hand around Drifter’s throat instead.

“Re _lax_ ,” Drifter says, hand on Shin’s wrist. He tilts his chin up, testing Shin’s grip, but Shin just tightens his hold. His eyes flicker to Drifter’s mouth, then lower. “I warned you, didn’t I? Damn.”

“Shouldn’t’ve.”

“Warned you? Ha—” Shin’s grip changes, less pressure on his windpipe, more fingertips digging into his skin, and Drifter sucks in a breath. It’s a promise, now, instead of a threat, and he intends to see that Shin makes good on it. Shin’s eyes snap back to his, dark and full of fire, and Drifter thinks he’s ready to be burned as he pulls Shin down to him and breathes, “Alright, then, lemme make it up to you.”

* * *

He’s had good information so far, Aunor tells herself firmly. She needs his connections and his willingness to push back against one of the City’s most revered legends.

She wishes she didn’t, though, as she watches Drifter messily shove a mod onto his shotgun and smack his fist down onto the stock to push the panel back in place. The metal and wood groan before giving in, smeared with grease. It’s somewhere between pity and tepid disgust, this impregnable aura that surrounds Drifter.

"Question for ya," he says, flicking metal shavings onto the ground.

"Yes?"

“What's your beef with Shin, anyways?"

_Shin._ It feels so jarring to hear just the first name. Too irreverent. It dawns on her in shades of discomfort, rippling through her chest. Aunor folds her arms.

"You're not actually scared of him, are you?"

Drifter sets the shotgun down and leans against the table.

"Miss Aunor," he says, dead serious, "believe me when I say there's nothin' scarier than a man who thinks he's got the right to do whatever he wants."

His eyes are flat and steely and Aunor is viscerally reminded of the fact that this man saw the worst of the Dark Age, the deepest of the night before dawn broke; survived past the edges of the system and brought nightmares back with him. And _this_ is his metric for what's worth his fear.

“So you don't think you're a target. Despite your... past."

"Me?" He laughs and pulls a coin out of thin air, then lets it ripple across his knuckles. "If Shin Malphur wants me, he knows where to find me. I ain't scared of the man. I'm scared of what drives him."

Aunor looks away.

"Me too," she says. "Justice isn't a man with a Golden Gun. He needs to be stopped. For what it's worth, I'm glad you understand."

"Nah," Drifter snaps, uncharacteristically sharp. "No, ma'am. You lock him up and I promise you, you'll have Guardians slippin' off your Vanguard's leashes faster'n you can realize they're gone. If they're dumb enough to fear a legend, they're smart enough to leave the Shadows alone. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with justice. Just survival."

"Oh, so now you suddenly care for the Vanguard?" This conversation has gone on long enough. She’d thought he was in a charitable mood today, handing over info and stats on a player that’d gone missing from his rosters, but he’s clearly just yanking her chain now. She scoffs. "Forget it. I'll be back later for more information. Don't bother adding any of your _wisdom_ to it."

"Hate him all you want," Drifter calls after her, "just know he's in this game to the end, same as you."

She nearly bumps into a Hunter on her way out but she doesn't let that stop her, just keeps marching on until she reaches the labs, Drifter's dry, barking laughter chasing her all the while.

* * *

“Armor match,” Bahaghari says on a private line, startling Aunor out of her half-dazed browsing at a stall down in the City market. “Four pieces out of five, Solar alignment, class Hunter.”

Aunor ducks out of the way and transmats her helmet on, adjusts her bond, and preps her favorite loadout.

“Marked on your HUD,” Bahaghari says right as the blip appears, and Aunor sets off through the crowd. 100 meters away. Average build. Different cloak, but she recognizes the same scuffed, careworn sleeves.

“What’s Shin Malphur doing on the Tower?” Aunor asks. “Check public and Vanguard comms for meetings.”

“Nothing,” Bahaghari replies. “Nothing on Hidden channels, either. If it’s a meeting, it’s above our clearance level. Or off the books.”

Aunor snarls under her breath. 80 meters. She’s closing the gap but he’s moving _fast_ , slipping like smoke through the crowds of people enjoying a crisp, sunny late-autumn afternoon.

60 meters, and Aunor cuts right through a courtyard to close 20 more. His cloak looks plain and dark – an aesthetic choice, or is he cutting down on Hunter flashiness, making himself harder to identify? – and the air shimmers around him as he swaps around some of his armor, silhouette warping.

“Lock onto that signal,” Aunor says.

“I’ve been trying,” Bahaghari fires back immediately. “There’s too much interference here and I can’t tell if he’s masking it, I need to be closer–”

Aunor bursts into a run, dodging artfully between City dwellers, and she’s down to 30 meters, 20, 10, and Shin Malphur rounds a corner, the hem of his cloak billowing out—

—and Aunor runs right into leftover static crackling in the air.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she spits.

“No signal,” Bahaghari says bitterly.

Aunor clenches her fists hard enough for the leather to squeak in her palms.

She finds herself checking in with Ada-1 instead of heading back to the Tower proper. Her relationship with the Vanguard is still shaky, as Aunor understands it, but she’s oddly, fiercely dedicated to a small bunch of Guardians, and her eyes shine a little brighter when Aunor updates her on recent operations to clear out Fallen from the outskirts.

Ada’s cool, even voice and neat space leave Aunor feeling much more centered than before as she heads back into the Annex’s dingy, warren-like hallways. She can log this incident and do Drifter the courtesy of informing him that Shin Malphur was almost certainly sniffing around the Tower today. He’d given her a location update on a missing Guardian last week that had panned out, whispers about whispers that she’d been able to follow to an abandoned campsite, ashes still warm in the snow-covered ground and an engram left carelessly.

She pauses, then backtracks. No sense waiting to tell Drifter; she’s down here already. She heads back down the hall towards Drifter’s entirely unwelcoming doorway.

It’s empty on the Tower today, the nice weather drawing everyone out onto the field or into the City, so the rumble of laughter that echoes softly out of Drifter’s room nearly startles her. She slows, cautious, and glances through the arch as she walks by nonchalantly, arms angled to cover the Cormorant Seal gleaming on her bond.

The metal grate is closed. Past it, Aunor catches sight of a cloak draped over the railing, folded with painstaking neatness, and then her attention is drawn by the look on Drifter’s face as he stares down at someone just out of her view, just a halo of messy hair visible from this angle. His eyes are dizzying in intensity even from this distance as the echo of his laugh fades away, and his smile is hungry.

Aunor walks all the way out to the deck without stopping and transmats back to her lab, thoughts swirling shapelessly.

* * *

“Get a message to Shin Malphur for me,” Aunor says, and with a burst of heat and air, knocks the coin away before it can fall back into Drifter’s hand.

He slowly turns his head to look at her, carefully still, like a cornered animal. The coin clatters softly to the ground, somewhere near the bank.

“And just what makes you think I got the power to do that?”

“You know how to avoid him. Clearly.” She gestures. “You’re not dead yet.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing.”

The tension is slowly leaving him, easiness moving back into his shoulders.

“Work backwards,” Aunor says, impatient. “Ask your contacts, your friends. Someone you know will know someone.”

“Sister, I ain’t got friends,” Drifter says, finally going back to leaning on the railing.

“Everyone has friends,” she says, and her opening is small, but she takes it anyways. “What about that Hunter of yours?”

Drifter’s eyes cut over to her, guarded.

“What Hunter?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” she chides. “You know what I mean.”

“Just ‘cause a guy’s got someone who helps him out time to time doesn’t mean shit,” Drifter says. “I got associates, and I got people who help me, and I got people who wanna kill me. Not much space for friends ‘tween those.”

“Fine,” Aunor replies, “then get your associates to get a message to Shin Malphur for me, or do it yourself. Tell him I want to meet on neutral ground. Not in an official capacity. I’ll be here—” She transmits over location data, a secluded catwalk in the hangars. “—every day next week at 1100 hours.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Drifter sneers.

“Call me ma’am like that one more time,” Aunor says, “and your Ghost will be reconstructing your atoms out of twelve separate composting facilities around the city.”

“Damn,” Drifter mutters, lip still curled. “Alright.”

“Your price?”

“Glimmer, matterweave, relic iron, and a round of Gambit.”

Aunor stares at him. He winks at her. She feels sparks fly from her fists.

“Fine,” she says, and transfers over the supplies. “One round.”

“Hell yeah, sister,” he says, laughing, and produces another coin out of nowhere to play with. Aunor turns away.

“And try being nice to your _friend_ outside of Gambit,” she says, heading back out into the hall. “Have lunch some time. I’m sure he’d appreciate the effort.”

She smiles as Drifter’s wordless sputter follows her out onto the stairwell.

* * *

Shin Malphur walks up to her slowly, making his footsteps clear on the catwalk grates, hands open and free, helmet off and all holsters empty. Something about the sight makes all her careful planning fly right out of Aunor’s head.

“Let me give them a chance,” Aunor says without preamble, without context. “Please. Let me save those Guardians you hunt.”

Shin is silent. She can’t tell if he’s surprised, or just thinking.

“Don’t think I can risk that,” he finally says. “You ain’t seen up close what the Dark can do to a person.”

“I have,” Aunor fires back, but something in his eyes puts her so ill at ease that she can’t bring herself to elaborate. “We don’t need to lose Guardians to one of our own. There are so many ways to help someone.”

"No pullin' someone back once they've crossed that line."

Anger flares up in her, cold and sharp.

"And who are you to decide what that line is?"

He's silent.

"I thought so."

Shin lets out a long, heavy sigh and leans over the Tower railing, shoulders hunched. He looks so much more _normal_ under that helmet than she’d ever imagined. A little unkempt, eyes tired, hair messy. She never would have been able to pick him out in a crowd by looks alone.

“I can give you a name,” he finally says. “One name. You do your worst. But if she goes too far, she answers to my steel.”

The anger threatens to spill over into rage but she beats it back, forces it down with the knowledge that she _will_ save this Guardian, she _will_ make sure that Shin Malphur doesn’t take another Light.

“Fine,” she says viciously, through gritted teeth.

“Rema Morys,” Shin replies right away. “Warlock. Red War cohort. Ran a lot of patrols on Titan. Getting up to questionable things when she’s not obsessively playing Gambit.”

“Rema Morys,” Aunor repeats, the puzzle fitting together in her hands with a rush of satisfaction. The Warlock. Drifter’s missing player. Yes. “ _Yes_. I played Gambit with her once.”

Shin raises his eyebrows. Aunor feels embarrassed suddenly, entirely unsure why, but she holds her ground. Shin says nothing. The hum of engines fills the hangar air between them.

“If you need information,” she says, slowly, and with a silent apology, “you should get in contact with the Drifter.” Shin stays silent. She glances over at him, not sure what to expect, and finds him tense, eyes full of some unknown fire. She goes on carefully. “He’s not the most palatable individual, but he has plenty of underworld connections. He’s already poised to dislike me, but I think he'd–”

“You think he’d like Shin Malphur?” he asks, interrupting her, and she’s shocked at the genuine amusement with which he says it, the wry dryness in his voice.

“A man with your resources could find ways,” she replies, sidestepping the absurdity of it. “Gambit is…” She trails off, unsure how to proceed.

“It’s the flame,” Shin says. “Draws the moths.”

“Yes,” Aunor agrees, surprised. “Yes, it is.”

They lapse back into silence again. Aunor doesn’t know what kind of a move she’s made, what kind of danger she might have put Drifter in, but this seems promising. If _she_ came to see just how useful Drifter and his game are, then surely Shin Malphur – deluded as he is in other respects – could come to the same conclusion. Maybe find the slightest scrap of gray in his black-and-white world. Like she did.

“You look nice,” Aunor says, offering the eternal olive branch that is complimenting a Hunter’s appearance.

He does look nice. He’s dressed in a neat, plain vest and pants, boots laced up to his knees, with shaders coloring the leather in warm sweeps of brown ranging from near-black to soft cream, highlights picked out in gold. His hand ghosts over his holsters, and if it were anyone else, she’d call it self-conscious.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly, then adds, “I’m meeting someone later.”

“I see,” Aunor replies. The air temperature ticks up by one degree Celsius. “Well then, Hunter, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Miss Aunor,” he says, with a polite nod, and she leaves him at the railing, his cloak drifting faintly in the breeze.

* * *

She should have listened to the Man with the Golden Gun.

She should have been more wary. Should have kept a closer eye on this Warlock after tracking her down, putting her through the usual rehabilitation programs, following the leads she’d given the Praxic Order about illegal artifacts and Hive rituals. Should have known there was something more off than it seemed.

And now, for her trouble, Aunor is bound and Lightless at the feet of a lost Guardian. The Warlock is whispering to herself, words Aunor doesn’t know and never wanted to hear, sharp things that cut into her, and the Warlock’s soft orisons are interrupted by the distant scuff of boots on rock.

“Dredgen,” Rema Morys breathes, reverent, adoring, worshipful, and Aunor wrenches herself around, pain flaring through her chest and stomach, but she still doesn’t dare pull out Bahaghari.

The tainted green light from the ritual flares with Rema’s excitement, sickly threads pooling on the ground and casting just enough light on the cave mouth for her to make out a silhouette. Sharp, intimidating.

_Dredgen._ The Warlock had been waiting for one of the Shadows. Dread pools in Aunor’s stomach, and flows back out through the jagged cut the Warlock had made when she’d caught Aunor at just the wrong moment.

He strides forward and every single one of Aunor’s atoms prickles with discomfort and fear as the weight of his presence falls over them both, stifling and heavy.

“Dredgen,” the Warlock repeats.

It happens faster than Aunor can comprehend.

The Warlock takes a breath—  
the man raises his hand—  
and he fires a gun.

Aunor’s blood – what remains of it in her body, anyway – runs cold as the sound of that gun firing cuts through her ears and into her core.

She’s only ever heard that sound in classified recordings.

Behind her, there’s a soft, ragged exhale, and the unmistakable sound of a body slumping over. The light drains out of the cavern, sinking into the ground like it’s being called, until only the faint glow of her bond is left. Aunor looks at the man approaching her and uses the last of her strength to push herself up and face him.

_Goodbye, Bahaghari_ , she thinks. _I love you. I love you. Thank you_.

The darkness curls closer around the man as he approaches, licking up his cloak, settling on his shoulders, blurring the edges of his figure. She’ll die fighting this. For her last few moments, she can live with that.

He tilts his helmet as he assesses her in silence, dim light settling in the ragged, rusted scars across his helmet and shoulders, cloak blacker than night and millimeters shy of brushing the ground. The gun – _the_ gun – hangs loose and comfortable in his hand, barrel glowing faintly with something that’s not heat.

“Impostor,” grinds out a low, flat voice, all humanity modulated out.

His hand snaps up. Aunor doesn’t close her eyes.

Thorn screams again, and there’s a sick burst of Light behind her.

The Ghost. Oh, Traveler, he shot the Ghost. Aunor reaches out for Bahaghari instinctively, tears of rage pricking at the corners of her eyes, but she doesn’t look away.

“She deserved a second chance,” she spits out. Her mouth tastes like copper.

He brushes back the hammer with the butt of his other hand, casual as anything, and the cylinder clicks into place. Loaded with another sick bullet.

“Stay out of things you don’t understand, Warlock.”

Aunor’s chest is heaving, hands shaking, and she doesn’t know fear from rage from pain anymore.

“I’ll find you,” she snarls, “every single one of you, and I will _kill you_ , and I will hold your poor, miserable Ghosts until they all swear to me to bring you back to the Light.”

The man laughs. It sounds like nails on rock, like flint striking steel, the click of a hammer cocking.

“Righteous,” he says, then scoffs in a burst of rumbling static. “Foolish.”

She is silent.

The man holsters Thorn and turns, cloak rippling, some faint pattern in the weave picking up the fading light of her bond.

“You deserve a second chance too,” she says, hoarsely, fiercely, “and as long as you hate that fact, I will continue to hope for you.”

He pauses, just long enough for his cloak to settle, and then keeps walking.

Aunor waits until the blip on her radar is gone, and then waits another ten minutes, then ten more, then she presses her face against Bahaghari’s warm, beautiful shell and sobs, drenched in her Light.

* * *

“Had somethin’ to work out there, pal?” Drifter asks once he’s caught his breath.

Shin closes his eyes and throws an arm over his face. Drifter can still see the faint sheen of sweat beading on his upper lip. He wants to kiss it off. He really disappoints himself, sometimes.

“Your Praxic contact,” Shin starts, then trails off.

Drifter waits. Shin’s lips are parted as he thinks, and that’s not making Drifter’s odd urges go away any. Nor is it stopping him from thinkin’ about what that mouth was doing a minute ago.

“Ran into her,” Shin finally says. “’Nother Guardian went too far. She got mixed up in it, bad. Guess she musta been tryin’ to track this other Warlock down, but this one was too far gone.”

Drifter turns away and clicks his tongue.

“ _Hive ritual_ too far,” Shin adds, moving his arm to look at him. “Was about ready to kill her.”

“Lemme guess,” Drifter says. “You killed ‘em first.”

“You don’t come back from somethin’ like that,” Shin murmurs. He shifts and pushes himself up over Drifter, skin fever-hot as they brush together, and hotter still as his hand strokes up Drifter’s thigh, thumb dipping into the crease of his hip. Drifter obliges, lets Shin hitch his leg up around his waist to press them together again. “Eats you up and leaves nothin’ behind, ‘cept a hole that can’t be filled.”

“Yeah?” Drifter thinks about the shape he cut when he showed up, like a ragged piece of night manifesting itself on the Derelict, eyes burning. “And what are you tryin’ to fill it up with?”

Shin twists fingers into his hair and pulls, wrenching a half-gasped laugh out of him, then scrapes his teeth along Drifter’s jaw before trailing what could only loosely be called kisses down, down, down, each stinging more than the last.

“Yeah, thought so,” Drifter whispers as Shin settles between his thighs again, and he tips his head back and closes his eyes.

* * *

Aunor plays Gambit again. Just once more.

Titan, this time, a rig almost entirely taken over by Hive corruption. There’s catharsis in losing herself to the rhythm of eradicating them one by one, leaving behind nothing but motes for her teammates to pick up. Each inhuman shriek reminds her of the cave. That ritual. That man. She burns with Light and unleashes it indiscriminately.

She doesn’t realize the margin by which they’ve won until Drifter calls it. Zero motes in the bank to a dead Primeval. End-of-match stats show their invader kills well into the double digits. Aunor glances over her teammates to see two Titans taking off for orbit, leaving just a Hunter in a full Invader set checking his bounties. A suspiciously familiar Hunter.

“Hey,” she says. He looks up, cautious. “I’ve seen you around. You–” She hesitates. Killed a lot of Guardians? Doesn’t have the same ring to it here as it does in the Crucible. “You play well.”

He dips his head politely. It’s definitely the same Hunter she’d played with before, the same odd difference in the way that snake pattern coils around his armor set. This Hunter’s good at what he does. Must make him a popular player. She wonders if Drifter queued them into a match together intentionally, or if he let his algorithm handle it.

“You too,” the Hunter replies. “You got most of our kills. Couldn’a gotten all those motes banked without you.”

“You must play often,” Aunor tries, fishing as politely and blithely as she can.

“Been with Gambit since just about the beginning,” he says, glancing over at Drifter. “Drifter is… an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Ah,” Aunor says. “I see.”

She looks over to see Drifter wrapping up with the other team, cashing out bounties and buttering up the losing team, then glances back at this mystery man. It’s infinitely frustrating that she can’t get a read on him at all, not through body language or voice or his general presence. He’s simply calm, collected, and thoroughly ruthless in Gambit.

"Hel-lo, Miss Aunor. Surprised to see _you_ out here again.” Drifter saunters over, flipping that coin between his fingers, clearly in good spirits. His eyes rake over the Hunter. “Hey, hotshot.”

The Hunter tilts his head, just enough to make the fabric of his hood rasp, then he sighs in a burst of static.

“Good game, Miss Aunor,” he says, then gives Drifter a lingering look before turning away. “I’ll queue again in an hour.”

Drifter lets out a quiet _tsk_ as the Hunter disappears in a warp of shimmering air, then he tosses his coin again and turns his shittiest smile onto Aunor.

“I see you’re likin’ the taste of Gambit you got,” he says, slick as oil.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she scoffs. “Last time I played, it led me to someone who–” Who _died_. Who was too far into the Dark for her to save. “I got leads. It’s more expedient this way.”

Drifter’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t like that calculating spark in them.

“Hey, you good?” he asks, lowering his voice. When she doesn’t– can’t– answer, he goes on. “‘Cause if you weren’t good, here’s what I’d tell you.” _Tink_ goes the coin against his glove, and back into the air. “You got somethin’ to burn away, do it in Gambit.” _Tink_. “Put it to rest killin’ all the shit that wants to kill you.” _Tink_. “Not killin’ Guardians.”

"Is that how you make your Dredgens?" she asks bitterly.

"Nah," he replies, quiet and serious. "The bad players wanna get out onto that field and kill for the thrill of it. The good ones know the real game isn't to kill, it's to survive."

The soft sound of that coin follows her all the way back to her ship.

* * *

Aunor very nearly stumbles over herself in surprise, arguably one of the most graceless things she's done in recent memory, and ends up standing like an awkward Dreg in headlights, staring into Drifter's section of the Annex.

Drifter is fixing the drape of that Hunter's hood, hand lingering at about jaw height, a motion so tender it's nearly incomprehensible that it's _him_ she's watching. The Hunter's hand comes up to grab Drifter's wrist. Not to restrain or threaten, but to hold.

Aunor is— this is too much to deal with, layers of bizarreness she can only associate with fever dreams. She clears her throat.

The Hunter turns his head. Drifter leans past him, casual as anything, and smiles that slick smile of his.

"Hey, Miss Aunor," he says, and all of a sudden his hand is busy with a coin instead, no trace left of that baffling show of human connection save for the Hunter lowering his hand, fingers flexing as he turns.

"You got business?" asks that familiar, modulated voice.

"Of a sort," Aunor replies, and glances between them. "Unless I'm interrupting."

"You were," Drifter says easily, right as the Hunter replies, "You weren't."

Another awkward silence stretches on.

"I'm done with today's matches," the Hunter says pointedly, and his outline shimmers as he switches off armor sets to something lighter, something Aunor vaguely recognizes as being a popular style in the Crucible right now. He looks back at Drifter as his helmet transmats off, hood falling down around an unhelmeted head. Aunor's chest seizes. That can't be right—

"Be seein' you," he says to Drifter, nodding, and Shin Malphur turns around to meet Aunor's eyes with the barest hint of a knowing smile on his face before pulling his hood up and striding past her, air warm in his wake.

Drifter can't know. It would upend _everything_ about this carefully balance Aunor has just managed to build.

And seconds later fury catches fire in her chest, sparked by _Shin Malphur_ hiding in plain sight under her nose for _months_ , tainted by bitter disappointment in herself that all it took was some armor and a voice modulator.

And Drifter. _Hell._ The way he talks about Shin Malphur, that contemptuous heat in his voice, his leering tone, set against the memory of that look on his face just now when Aunor walked in—

He can't know. She can't tell him. _He can’t know_.

"Damn," Drifter says, flicking that coin up in the air, "you look pissed. Wanna play a round of Gambit?"

Fuck Shin Malphur.

Aunor transmats into the queue without another word.

* * *

“She’s not half bad,” Shin says.

Drifter catches his reflection in a monitor, vision blurring between the chaos on Kell’s Grave and Shin’s flushed face, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead, leaning in the doorway with his Crucible gear still on.

“Eh,” Drifter says, shrugging, “if you’re into cops, I guess.”

Shin snorts.

“Meant in Gambit. Are you?”

Aunor summons her Dawnblade right then and rains near-complete destruction on the Primeval, Drifter’s shittiest monitor blown out completely with the intensity of her fire. Drifter meets Shin’s eyes in the reflection, then turns and sits halfway on the console.

“Into cops? Nah.” He shifts his knees apart in wordless invitation. “Me, I like renegades.”

“That so?” Shin’s steps are slow, deliberate, and Drifter lets a grin curl across his face as Shin stops right between his thighs, leaning forward to brace his hands against the console. His eyes are dark and luminous, breath hot against Drifter’s skin, and just for a heartbeat, for a split second, the moment hangs suspended as Drifter leans in and meets Shin halfway, just this once. The way their mouths brush is barely tender with how heavy the weight of promise is behind it, but Drifter watches Shin’s eyes flutter closed and thinks he could chase that forever. Shin exhales, lips brushing against his with the movement, and murmurs, “Wrong renegade might just burn you up.”

Drifter wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> aunor..... i did this because i love you


End file.
